Thursday, October 20, 2016

Thankful, Living for Today and Tomorrow

Due to a natural gas explosion yesterday morning the Tattoo shop where my cousin worked in Portland Oregon was completely demolished. There were several injured in the explosion but no one died and no one from their shop was injured. Needless to say we are extremely thankful today that while they are starting over today with their livelihoods they still have what is most important to them - their lives. This is the same cousin whom I traveled to his wedding a couple of years ago (most amazing tattoo wedding cake). He has a young wife and two kids, his youngest is 8 months old. Fortunately, his wife has a very good job and hopefully they will be fine until his company can get a temporary shop up and running asap.

The past few weeks have been very weird. Another of my graduating class committed suicide, this time someone who I was not friends with but knew of. Keep in mind, my graduating class had 100 people in it and two have chosen that way to end their lives in the past year.

My Mother-in-law who turns 82 in December is looking like she may or may not make that Birthday. She has given up the will to live and refuses to eat. She went from a still vibrant healthy lady last Christmas (although she clearly was suffering from Alzheimers) to now just a ghost of her former self. She used to worry so much about running out of money before she died until hubby sat her down a couple of years ago and worked out her finances, clearly showing her she could live at least to 100 and be fine and if after that she needed money we would take care of it.

So just a reminder that while it us good to plan and save for tomorrow, one shouldn't just live for tomorrow, live for today as well. I intend to live until at least 90...we shall see :)

22 comments:

Your poor cousin, I'm glad to hear that he's okay. That explosion looks devastating.There must be something about this time of year, lots of people who suffer from depression loathe October. So sad about your school friend.That's how my Dad went, after 5 years with dementia he took to his bed, refused to open his eyes or eat, dying weeks later. I feel your pain. x

A great post to remind us of what is most important. All we truly have is 'now!'Praise God that no one was killed in that horrible explosion!So how was you Staycation? I need to see if I have missed some posts!I think I shall live into my 90's too!! At least I am planning on it!

It truly was a miracle no one was injured and the firemen had everything to do with that as they were on scene before the explosions as had been notified of the leak. One ran door to door pulling fire alarms. Several firemen were injured with broken limbs unfortunately but they will all be ok.

Good grief, lucky to be alive and well. Hopefully there can be an insurance claim. It's sad to lose someone to suicide, every body wonders if something could have been done to prevent it. There is little digity in aging...

There is an insurance claim but as someone who was a property underwriter for years, it takes a long time for business insurance to pay off. They are raising money to get a temporary location in the mean time. A lot of money has been quickly raised by their friends, families and clients and hopefully within a week or two they will be able to reopen somewhere.

I'm so very sorry to hear about the disaster your family is facing, and also the health of your mother in law. You are absolutely correct - embracing where we are, and our lives is a critical part of perspective. I need those reminders quite often.

You guys are my heros for your lifestyle. Hubby could not live the travel lifestyle so I have to just drag him here and there (he does enjoy traveling but I do 100% of the planning so just tell him where we are going and he is fine with that)

I'm so sorry for your cousin-it is hard to start over, and with young kids, hard to balance it all anyway. I guess you just try and support your MIL as best you can, and bet there for each other too. We owe it to those that die way to soon to enjoy the life we have. We also owe it to the generations that come after us to not leave them with debt and over consumption of resources, so it is a balancing act-live within our means, put some away, but above all, remember what matters.

Wow, that would be really really hard. I am sorry to hear that. My uncle committed a suicide when I was a kid but it actually made sense when we found out he had cancer and was months away from dying. He was always skinny and smoked like crazy and it got him. Still very tough though.